(source)
|
Sir Joseph William Bazalgette
(28 Mar 1819 - 15 Mar 1891)
British civil engineer and civil engineer who solved the Victorian-era problem of the horrendous pollution of the sewage-laden River Thames by designing and building London’s sewer system.
|
Science Quotes by Sir Joseph William Bazalgette (2 quotes)
[The principle, in building a sewer system, was] ...of diverting the cause of the mischief to a locality where it can do no mischief.
— Sir Joseph William Bazalgette
Quoted in George Drysdale Dempsey and Daniel Kinnear Clark, On the Drainage of Lands, Towns, & Buildings (1887), 246.
At that time, the river at Westminster was in such an abominable condition that they were obliged to close the windows of the Houses of Parliament and there was a talk of Parliament having to shift to other quarters altogether. What was the cause of it? The drains of London were pouring down their filth into the river at low water. There was no outflow from them at high water. The tide kept the sewage up the drains then; but when the tide had been running out for hours and the water in the river began to run low, then the drains began to pour out their sewage and of course when the tide came in again it was all swept up by the stream. When the tide ebbed it all came down and so it kept oscillating up and down the river, while more filth was continuously adding to it until the Thames became absolutely pestilential.
— Sir Joseph William Bazalgette
In 'Representative Men at Home; Sir Joseph Bazalgette, C.B.,at Wimbledon', Cassell's Saturday Journal (30 Aug 1890), 1160-1. As quoted and cited in Ph.D. Thesis by Stephen Halliday, 'Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Main Drainage of London' (Dec 1977), 3.
See also:
- 28 Mar - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Bazalgette's birth.
- More for Sir Joseph William Bazalgette on Today in Science History page.
- The Great Stink of London: Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Cleansing of the Victorian Metropolis, by Stephen Halliday. - book suggestion.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
